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Tuesday, November 18, 2014

What's Wrong With The Lakers?

What's up readers? It's HipsterC here to talk about a very sad story in the NBA. The Los Angeles Lakers. They are off to a franchise worst 1-9 start and people are wondering," have the Lakers lost it?" For the moment, they have. It's sad to see Kobe, in the twilight of his career, being forced to jack up shot after shot in an attempt to keep his "team" in the game. Kobe is shooting a career worst 37% from the field, and a mediocre 28% from three. Sure he is averaging 27 ppg, but who couldn't when he's shooting as much as he is? He's taking 24 shots a game! He is leading the league in scoring and shot attempts. He recently broke the NBA record for missed shots in a career. I'm not going to criticize him for that. Over the course of 19, highly productive years you're going to rack up a lot of shot attempts. With a career field goal percentage over 45%, they're justified. Kobe is just being Kobe. When things go bad for the team, he tries to take over. It worked in the past, but these days teams will just let Kobe do his thing and keep his teammates out of the game. As an opposing coach, you'll gladly let Kobe score 44 if it means you win by 21 like the Warriors did. Kobe isn't exactly doing a great job getting his teammates involved. He's averaging just over 3 assists per game, which would be fine if he didn't have the ball so much, but that is unfortunately not the case. If the Lakers want to turn this season around and at least compete with teams on a nightly basis, Kobe is going to have to trust his teammates. While that has never been his strong suit, he can do it. I expect him to slow down on the shooting after he passes MJ on the all time scoring list. That doesn't work if he wants to win games now, but I'm not so sure he's concerned about winning right now. The Lakers won't contend for a playoff spot this year. That much is clear. The real question is how bad will Kobe allow them to be? They have some offensive weapons, but they don't really click very well. Their defense is horrible. I don't know if that is repairable. They have the ability to defend, just not the desire. I understand that. When you're losing, what's the point? You already know you're going to lose. Why defend? That is the entire problem. The teams mentality has to change. They have the potential to at least be an average team, but not if they don't believe in themselves. I'm not sure if the Lakers will turn it around and win some games, but I do know this. If they don't start playing as a team, both offensively and defensively, this team might not even get 20 wins. As always let me know what you think in the comment section and have a great day.
Peace~ HipsterC